Epigone

Epigone, a rare word in English for ‘one of a later (and less distinguished) generation’ (Concise Oxford Dictionary), is generally used in German to denote derivative writers in the shadow of greater predecessors. Its frequency is probably due to the use of the word as a title by K. L. Immermann for a widely read novel, Die Epigonen (1836). ‘Epigone’ is not confined to literature and the arts; it is often applied to the post-Bismarck politicians and diplomats of the Wilhelmine era (see Wilhelminisches Zeitalter).